Monday, September 10, 2018

At Kia
Oval, the day ended with Alastair Cook after 161 Tests, had England waiting with bated breath. His career statistics stood at 12254
runs in 289 innings (160 tests) 32 centuries; ~ and a lot was to happen today !

Ending
Career in style and going out when on top is rather difficult to achieve ! ~ Vic
Richardson was a noted all-round Australian sportsman for, besides taking part
in 19 Test matches between 1924 and 1935, represented his county at baseball
and played for South Australia at cricket, baseball and golf. He also won a
State tennis title, was prominent at lacrosse and basketball and was a
first-rate swimmer.Richardson played in
all five Test matches of the body-line tour of Douglas Jardine's England team
in 1932-33.Not many would know that his
grandsons played for Australia and they were the illustrious Ian Chappel, Greg
Chappel & Trevor Chappel.

At
Sydney in Test no. 974 on Jan 1984, Greg Chappel retired.He scored 182 and was easily the man of the
match. With a century in his first and
last Tests, 22 others in between, and a career average of 53.86, Greg Chappell
was the foremost Australian batsman of his generation. Could well remember that match – 5th
Test against Pakistan at Bangalore in Mar 1987 – the young Maninder Singh spun viciously
bowling Pakis for a paltry total with magic figures of 18.2-8-27-7 !!

Not many
would remember that he played his last Test against Zimbabwe – India won by an
innings, Vinod Kambli made 227, Vijay Yadav the wicket-keeper debuted and
played his only Test.Andy Flower made
115; Grant Flower made 96 – Maninder took 3/79 and in the 2nd took
4/66 – yet that was to be his last Test.Getting back to that Bangalore test, Pak won by 16 runs – Imran khan did
not bowl – only 3 bowlers Wasim Akram, Iqbal Qasim and Tauseef Ahmed used on a
vicious turner, where Sunil Gavaskar made 96 brought India much closer to the
victory – but team faltered too close to the end.That was Sunil’s last test innings !!

Yesterday,
Alastair Cook had walked out to a rapturous standing ovation from a full house
at The Oval for his final international innings and by the close was within touching
distance of making twin fifties in the match - with the fairytale finish of a
century still on offer.Alastair Cook
had passed 20 the afternoon before, made a 50 – then it was Kumar Sangakkara's position as fifth on the
Test run-scorers' table: Cook needed to reach 76 for that. He got there
driving, not cleanly, but an inside edge was enough for a single and the title
of highest scoring left-handed batsman in Test history.And then, of course, the century. Cricket has
been cruel to many of its greatest proponents. Few get to name the day of their
final stand, let alone write the bit about riding off into the sunset and
living happily-ever-after. Cook had scored a half-century and a century on his
debut against India in Nagpur; surely, 12 years and 161 Test matches on, he made another symmetrical ton, too perfect.

Alastair
Cook's emotional wife was overwhelmed with joy today as the England cricket
star scored a century in his final match on the day she is due to give birth. Former
model Alice Cook, who is nine months pregnant, sat alongside their daughters
Elsie, four, and Isabelle, one, who also went wild as they watched their
33-year-old father make history at the Oval in south London today. The former
England captain enjoyed a fairytale end to his international career by scoring
a century in his final match for his country. And with Alice due to give birth
to their third child any moment, there will be even more cause for celebration
in the Cook household in the coming days.

With
India's tour of England coming to an end, there's now a buzz around their tour
of Australia in November, where they will play four Tests and a limited-overs
series. If Adam Gilchrist, the Australian great, is to be believed, the tour
may be shaped up by how Australia's replacements for David Warner and Steven
Smith, who are in the middle of a year-long ban for the Newlands ball-tampering
scandal, can step up and perform. He's seen Australia adopt the revolving door
policy since Brad Haddin's retirement in 2015. Australia have tried Graham
Manou, Matthew Wade, Peter Nevill and Peter Handscomb, before eventually
recalling Tim Paine. It's a mistake he hopes India don't make, calling for them
to instead be patient with Rishabh Pant. The 20-year old wicketkeeper so far
has scores of 24, 1, 0, 18 and 5 in five Test innings. "It may take some
chopping and changing, but if you churn through players too quickly, it can
leave a psychological scar on their minds," Gilchrist said.

The
ICC will grant all matches in multi-team one-day tournaments ODI status when
they include teams with and without international status, beginning with the
Asia Cup in the UAE this month, amid a wider review of the application of
status in one-day cricket. The decision will also extend to World Cup
Qualifiers in the future. Hong Kong, who don't hold ODI status, booked their
place in the Asia Cup by beating UAE in the qualifying final and it raised the
potential of some matches in the event being ODIs and others not. Hong Kong is
the only team among the six participating teams without an ODI status.

There
was significant criticism when not all matches at the World Cup Qualifiers in
Zimbabwe earlier this year were handed ODI status. That led to a confusing mix
of classifications for fixtures during the event and included the scenario
where Netherlands, who joined the 16-team ODI rankings after the tournament,
were not playing ODIs in the qualifiers.Dave Richardson, the ICC chief executive, also confirmed a review of ODI
status is being undertaken with an outcome expected in the next few months.